If humans desire to live for many more centuries to come, they have to take desperate steps to protect the environment. The socio-economic health of civilisations depends on it. A case in point is that of the power sector. India faces a huge energy deficit: till 2001, only 44 per cent of Indian households had access to electricity. But consumption's galloping: between 1947 and 2001, India's per capita power consumption rose from 15 to 592 units.

If India has to move ahead economically, it must find ways to bridge the deficit. The generation of energy, however, exerts significant environmental impacts. The efficiency of a thermal power plant, for instance, averages about 33 per cent, which makes it necessary to release